Patrick O'Brian - Post captain

‘Dull? Oh, Stephen.’

‘But his future worries me, I must confess. From what I understand there may be changes in Whitehall from one day to the next. His influence is small; and good, capable officer though he undoubtedly is, he may never get another ship. There are some hundreds of post captains unemployed. I passed several of them on that sparse barren dismal grass-​plat they call the Hoe, looking hungrily at the shipping in the Sound. This acting-​command will soon be over, and then he will be on the shore. At present there are just eighty-​three sea-​going ships of the line in commission, a hundred and one frigates, and maybe a score of other post-​ships. And Jack is 587th in a list of 639. It would have been simpler if he had remained a commander, or even a lieutenant: there are so many more opportunities for employment.’

‘But surely, General Aubrey being in Parliament must be a very good thing?’

‘Sure, if he could be induced to keep his mouth shut, it might be. But just now he is on his hind legs in the House, busily stamping Jack as a double-​dyed Tory. And St Vincent and his friends, you know, are rabid Whigs -the general feeling of the service is whiggish to a degree.’

‘Oh dear. Oh dear. Perhaps he will take a splendid prize. He does deserve it so. The Admiral says the Lively is one of the best sailers that ever was; he is full of admiration for her.’

‘So she is. She runs along with a most surprising smooth velocity, a pleasure to behold, and her hands are most attentive to their duty. But, my dear, the day of splendid prizes is gone. At the beginning of the war there were French and Dutch Indiamen: there is not one left on the seas at present. And he would have to cut out a dozen Fanciullas to pay off his debts, so that he could set foot on shore without danger - by the bye, he is coming to see you on Sunday. How happy we shall be to be rid of him for a while - pray keep him as long as ever you can, or the men will break out in open rebellion. Not only are they compelled to scrub the ship below the water-​line, but now they are required to comb the lambs.’

‘How very happy we shall be to see you both. Pray, are lambs a part of the ship? I have read the Marine Dictionary until the pages have begun to come out, to understand the actions; but I do not remember any lambs.’

‘They may well be. There are horses, fishes, cats, dogs and mice in their barbarous jargon; and bears; so I dare say there are lambs, rams, ewes, wethers and tegs. But these particular animals are for your nourishment: they are literally lambs. He has laid in stores that would be excessive for a pair of ogresses - a cask of petits-​f ours (they will be damnably stale), four Stilton cheeses, a tub of scented soap, forsooth, handtowels - and now, I say, these lambs are required to be washed and combed twice a day. Keep him to dinner - let him sup with you - and perhaps we may have a little peace.’

‘What would he like to eat? A pudding, of. course; and perhaps souse. And what would you like, Stephen? Something with mushrooms in it, I know.’

‘Alas, I shall be a hundred miles away. I have one commission to perform for Captain Aubrey, and then I hoist myself into this evening’s coach. I do not expect to be gone for long. Here is my direction in London: I have written it on a card for you. Pray send me word how you liked your voyage.’

‘Shall you not be coming, Stephen?’ cried Sophia, clasping his arm. ‘What will happen to me?’

‘No, my dear. I cast you adrift. Sink or swim, Sophie; sink or swim. Where is my hat? Come, give me a buss, and I must away.’

‘Jack,’ said he, walking into the cabin, ‘what are you at?’

‘I am trying to get this God-​damned plant to stand upright. Do what I may, they keep wilting. I water them before breakfast and again in the last dog-​watch, and still they wilt. Upon my word, it is too bad.’

‘What do you water them with?’

‘The best water, straight from the scuttle-​butt.’

‘If you anoint them with the vile decoction we drink and wash in, of course they wilt. You must send ashore for some rain-​water; and at that rate of watering, some aquatic plants.’

‘What an admirable notion, Stephen. I shall do so at once. Thank you. But apart from these poxed vegetables, don’t you think it looks tolerably well? Comfortable? Homelike? The gunner’s wife said she had never seen the like: all she could suggest was somewhere to hang their clothes, and a pincushion.’

The cabin resembled a cross between a brothel and an undertaker’s parlour, but Stephen only said that he agreed with Mrs Armstrong and suggested that it might be a little less like a state funeral if the tubs were not quite so rigidly arranged about each cot. ‘I have your plates,’ he said, holding out a green-​baize parcel.

‘Oh, thank you, thank you, Stephen. What a good fellow you are. Here’s elegance, damn my eyes. How they shine! Oh, oh,’ his face fell. ‘Stephen, I do not like to seem ungrateful, but I did say hawser-​laid, you know. The border was to be hawser-​laid.’

‘Well, and did I not say, “Let there be a hawser about the periphery” and did he not say, the shopman, God’s curse upon him, the thief, “Here, sir, is as pretty a hawser as Lord Viscount Nelson himself could desire”?’

‘And so it is. A capital hawser. But surely my dear Stephen, you must be aware, after all this time at sea, that a hawser is cable-​laid, not hawser-​laid?’

‘I am not. And I absolutely decline to hear more of the matter. A hawser not hawser-​laid - what stuff. I badger the silversmith early and late, and we are to be told that hawsers are not hawser-​laid. No, no. The wine is drawn, it must be drunk. The frog has neither feathers nor wool, and yet she sings. You will have to sail up to the Downs, eating the bread of affliction off your cable-​laid baubles, and wetting it with the tears of misery; and I may tell you, sir, that you will eat it without me. Essential business calls me away. I shall put up at the Grapes, when I am in London: I hope to be there well before Michaelmas. Pray send me a line. Good day to you, now: God bless.’

The grapes were home in Catalonia when Dr Maturin left the Abbot of Montserrat. All through the country as he rode his swift-​trotting mule westwards, the vineyards had their familiar shattered, raped appearance; in the villages the streets ran purple-​red with lees and the hot air was heavy with fermentation - an early year, an auspicious year. Melons everywhere, ten for a realillo, figs drying all round Lérida, oranges bronze on the trees. Then a more decided autumn in Aragon; and throughout the green Basque country rain, solid rain day after day, pursuing him even to the dark lonely beach where he stood waiting for the boat, the drops running off his sodden cloak and vanishing into the shingle underfoot.

The surge and grind of waves withdrawing, then at last the sound of careful oars and a low call through the rain:

‘Abraham and his seed for ever.’

‘Wilkes and liberty,’ said Stephen.

‘Let go the kedge, Tom.’ Splashes, a thump; and then, very close to him, ‘Are you there? Let me give you a back, sir. Why, you are all wet.’

‘It is on account of the rain.’

Rain pouring off the deck of the lugger; rain flattening the waves the whole length of the Channel; rain pelting down in the streets of London, overflowing from the Admiralty’s gutter.

‘How it rains,’ said the young gentleman in a flowered dressing-​gown and nightcap who received him. ‘May I take your cloak, sir, and spread it by the fire?’

‘You are very good, sir, but since Sir Joseph is not in the way, I believe I shall go straight to my inn. I have been travelling hard.’